Guerillas In Our Midst

by Claire Peate

  His bedroom was on the mezzanine level, overlooking the open plan living area downstairs. The bedroom extended as far as the iron bed and the large shaggy rug it stood on. After that the space narrowed to a long strip running against one wall which was his studio – benches lined the vast-windowed walls, cluttered with paint, brushes, rags. Silently, I swung my legs out of bed and padded over to the studio, naked. It was liberating, being naked in an artist’s studio. And kind of appropriate too, after having slept with the artist. Having spent a night illegally gardening under the stars.

  How my life was changing now that Beth had left me…

  The first painting I saw was of a boy, grinning at the artist. It was painted in blocks of blues and whites. It was clever. Guy had captured the picture using only bold colour blocks. I placed it back down on the work bench and looked beside it. There was a photograph of the sitter. And attached to it was a letter.

  Dear Sir

  Please find enclosed a photograph of the subject – my son Jonnie. As requested, the walls and ceiling of the room in which we’d like to hang the picture are painted in F&B Dimity, Skylight and Lulworth Blue.

  Please find also enclosed a cheque for two thousand pounds, as per your instructions.

  Sincerely yours

  Imogen Whitel.

  I replaced it and moved on. A pared down painting of a family group in whites and greens, details picked out in a deep cherry red. I skimmed the letter that lay beside it.

  Dear Mr Newhouse …my brother in law’s family … anniversary present … Zoffany Fennel, Chalk and Berry … cheque for two thousand pounds …

  And on. Canvases started. Canvases yet to be finished. Drip laden pots of designer emulsion in every possible colour. And by each canvas and its paint pots was the corresponding photograph and the letter. Please find a photograph of my son, my daughter, my wife, my family, my dogs. And the lists of the colours of the rooms in which the painting would hang. And always the cheque. For two thousand pounds.

  There was a noise behind me and I turned. Guy had stirred but was still asleep. Hastily, I put back the letters and photographs. Was this wrong? Was I snooping? Surely not. Snooping was going into drawers or opening books. All I was doing was seeing what was laid bare on the benches. I was surface snooping which really wasn’t snooping at all: it was just showing an interest. Yes – if he woke up now I’d simply tell him I was showing an interest in his talent.

  I’d reached the end of the bench and had come to a giant parcel wrapped in thick brown paper and string, addressed to a Mrs Sittinghurst in Norfolk. Someone’s completed masterpiece ready to be despatched. Above it, pinned to the wall, was a two-page newspaper article from the Guardian a few months earlier. I leant closer to read it.

  FARROW AND BALL PORTRAITURE by the Guardian’s Arts Editor Roger Wendell

  When is a painting not a painting? When it’s the interior decoration too – how London-based artist Guy Newhouse bridges the gap between art and décor and has become one of the hottest things in the art world.

  Roger Wendell! I did a double-take: Roger Wendell was surely the irritable man I’d spent the evening with painting the bench up on Hilly Fields. I scanned Roger’s article which had pictures of Guy’s various works of art, one in yellows, one in greys, the other in blues. And there was a photograph of Guy, taken just where I was standing. He was working at an easel with an intense and brooding expression, his hair tied roughly back. I looked over my bare shoulder at the man still asleep.

  “I don’t feel I’ve sold out,” Newhouse said, “It’s a new direction in art. I began my emulsion portraits for a celebrity friend who wanted art but didn’t want to compromise the look of his lounge by introducing a new colour palette to the room. The commissions came from that. I enjoy working within the constraints of the medium: of only having usually between three to six colours to work with to bring out a portrait. Sometimes as an artist the world is too full of possibilities.” You can join the rich and famous by having your own portrait painted. Contact Guy by email via guy@emulsion portraiture.co.uk.

  “The making of my fortune.”

  “Oh!” I stepped back, shocked. I hadn’t heard him get up. He was beside me, naked, pressing against my bare skin, his hands snaking around me.

  I could feel myself blushing. “I—”

  “It’s a living,” he said as he pulled me back towards the bed. “It’s money and I like money a lot. Now come back to bed and do that thing you did one more time. I also like that a lot.”

  Dammit. I’d left my phone in the kitchen at Guy’s. I realised I’d left it when I’d shut the front door behind me and had walked about five steps. Dithering, in the gravelled lane, I’d finally decided to not knock on the door and get it back, firstly because it gave him a reason to come over to my house and drop it off … hey, as you’re here why don’t we grab a bite to eat … and secondly because he was probably fast asleep and waking him up wouldn’t endear me to him. It would take the shine off his impression of me as a Highland-Clearance Honey: “scatty” didn’t sit overly well with the vision of a woman with an inner inferno. The sky was black and already drizzle was falling: it wouldn’t do to stay outside his house and dither.

  I arrived back at Geoffrey Road in a downpour, Finley sheltering under the enormous sundial and making a dash for the front door when I got my key out.

  “Hello, boy.” I rammed the key in the lock.

  “Good night last night was it, darlin’?” I was heckled over the garden wall, Babs’ voice carrying over the deafening hiss of rain on pavement.

  “Morning, Babs.” She was standing under her porch with the habitual fag in.

  “Funeral was it then, love?”

  “Pardon?” I shouted.

  “You love, dressed all in black! Someone died?”

  “No. I was out last night!”

  “Anywhere nice?”

  “Nowhere special. I have to … I have to feed the cat!” I shouted and darted into the house. It was my only defence against spilling the beans: having a conversation with Babs was like playing a game of tennis. I’d deflect and deflect and deflect every question she fed me and then wallop she’d catch me unawares with an innocuous little enquiry and I’d have told her everything I knew about guerrilla gardening, my deceased parents’ fatal hobby and what I had for breakfast. Better to run away and hide.

  “Oh Fin!” I got as far as the kitchen and stared in horror at the surrounding devastation. “What’s happened here Fin?” My first thought was burglars. But the door had been locked and all the windows looked to be intact. Then I thought it must have been caused by Finley. But then I realised that, actually, it had been caused by none other than Robert. The sticky black-covered work top and appliances were from Robert’s fight with the malt in the early hours. The breakfast stool had toppled over and – my heart sank – my precious Valhalla plate had been knocked off the shelf and smashed into an unmendable amount of pieces. Putting down my bag I lifted up the larger shards of the plate and stared at them, running a thumb along the familiar bumps and grooves of the plate my parents had given me at my first Viking festival up in the Shetlands. I had been eight. I’d hated the festival and I’d hated the plate which was grey and green and brown and not dayglo pink, which was the only colour I was interested in as an eight year old.

  I liked it now though.

  One more tie to the past cut free…

  “Oh bloody hell, Fin,” I squatted down and scooped up the biggest shard which had “Halla” across it, propping it up against the window. With a heavy heart I swept the rest into the bin before making a coffee, sitting at the breakfast bar and watching the rain streaming down the French windows. I was tired, from a mostly sleepless night, and in the mood for feeling maudlin. I stared at the remaining shard of the Valhalla plate. The Vikings seemed a long way away now: it felt as though that life had been someone else’s, the hog roasts, the horrible itchy clothes, heavy weaponry, the canvas tents that leaked and the terrible Viking
longboat.

  “Hi.” Robert was beside me. I jumped: I’d been so caught up in the memories that I hadn’t heard him.

  “Hi.” My stomach knotted. I was going to have to act the landlady about the broken plate and the state of the kitchen, but what the hell was I supposed to say? Should I tell him off, or talk through my issues, or what? What would Beth do? What – in fact – had I said to Beth that time she’d broken the shower door after one of our more epic nights out? I struggled to remember and then it came to me: I’d hit her with my pillow. OK, so perhaps not the most appropriate way to mete out punishment in this case.

  Robert sat beside me on the old bench. I looked at him. And then I laughed.

  “What is it? Are you laughing at me?” Robert suddenly looked alarmed.

  I clamped my hand over my mouth. “I am. I’m sorry. It’s just your hair … it’s completely mad.”

  “Oh, goddamn it.” He tried in vain to push it down.

  “Good night was it?” I said.

  “Erm. Yes. You?”

  “The best. Really excellent. Really very good indeed.” Go on – ask me.

  There was a pause and Robert said, “I am so sorry about the state of the kitchen. I was completely pissed last night … well you know what state I was in… and I’ll replace that plate I broke. I’m so sorry. I did try to start tidying up, but I was just doing more damage so I stopped.”

  “It’s fine…” I began.

  “Robert?”

  We both turned to the door where a petite blonde thing was standing, wearing Robert’s favourite pyjamas: the red ones with the pink stripes.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Hi. Sorry to disturb you but, Robert, where’s the bathroom?”

  I stared up at the miniature beauty on my kitchen threshold.

  Had Robert spent the night with her? Why was she in my house? Had he slept with her?

  Of course he had. What was I – Victorian? She would hardly have arrived this morning and put his pyjamas on – so, in that case, where had she been when he came in last night? Had she been in the kitchen when I’d left and I’d not noticed her? Did he make the malted toast for her? Did he go back to his room for malty fun when I was out digging up Brockley?

  Was the pretty little thing a girlfriend?

  “Here, I’ll show you.” Robert got up and walked off with her.

  I watched them go. She was so petite. And so pretty. Even despite his baggy pyjamas I could see she had a stunning figure and her blonde hair was bed ruffled, just as his had been.

  Oh. Oh. I went back to staring at the rain running in crazy patterns down the windows, my head completely empty of any thoughts whatsoever. And I was feeling dreadful: I needed sleep…

  And then there was a loud knocking at the front door.

  Guy!

  I dashed to the hallway, not thinking to check my appearance in the hall mirror or lose the baggy cardigan. He must have woken up soon after I’d left him asleep in the rumpled bed, and seen my mobile – he was keen! He did like me. We could spend a lazy day arm in arm around Greenwich, looking at the markets, having a long lunch in one of the cafés...

  I wrenched open the door.

  “Hi there, Edda.” It was Neil from V-2, sheltering from the downpour underneath a giant Fox Estates golfing umbrella. He gave a short laugh. “Well! It’s good to see I haven’t lost my ability to disappoint women.”

  “Oh, no, not at all.” I adjusted my expression from total disappointment to polite interest. “Come in, I’m sorry, come in, come in out of the rain.”

  “I can’t,” he hopped from foot to foot and now I saw that he was looking stressed beyond belief. Gardening all night and then running a café from seven o’clock the next morning must be some sort of hell. “The thing is,” he ran a hand through his already manic blonde afro, “two of the girls are off ill today and Anja and I just can’t cope.” He dropped his voice. “Especially after last night. You know, man? We haven’t slept more than a few hours. Anja’s had to crash: she’s whacked out. So, I know you said you were maybe interested, you know, in getting some work experience at a café? Well I don’t suppose you want to do it today … do you?”

  No no no no no no no! In my head I’d begun planning the most fabulous day with Guy. He would be round imminently with my phone and then after showing him how grateful I was to have it back we would walk to Greenwich. We’d have dinner in Blackheath and then go back to his…

  “…and we’d be so grateful,” Neil was saying. “Please Edda.”

  I bit my lip. “Of course,” I said, “I’ve got nothing planned. What time do you want me?”

  There was a pause. “Ten minutes ago?”

  “Fine. Right.” I said. “Give me fifteen minutes.”

  “You’re a star, Edda! A big, shiny, wonderful star!”

  He bounded off through the rain-soaked knot garden, back in the direction of V-2.

  “Cappuccino and latte to table five!” Neil thrust a tray at me and I took it and wound my way through the café. It was the fiftieth tray that morning, the ninetieth latte and the millionth cappuccino. I’d guerrilla gardened for half the night and spent the other half getting to know Guy, and now I was waitressing to a packed café. I was full-on exhausted and I knew I looked it: a glance in the mirror behind the counter and I was horrified by the hag staring back at me.

  But, however awful I must have looked, Neil looked worse. Pinned to the espresso machine he had spent the entire morning grinding, steaming, stirring and then knocking out the grinds before starting all over again. His dreadlocked hair had gone stratospheric and there was a touch of insanity about his wide staring eyes. He looked, in fact, like someone suffering from incredible stress, preceded by a night of manual labour and not enough sleep.

  “Here’s the order for table two,” Neil pushed a tray towards me. “They just need a slice of fudge cake. Can you bung it on?”

  “Sure,” I reached into the cake counter.

  “Enjoying yourself, Edda?”

  “Ye-es?”

  Neil laughed. “It’s not usually as mad as this. It’s the rain – no one’s going into the parks in this weather but they want to get out of the house.”

  “So everyone from Brockley has come here?”

  “Pretty much. And it’s just you and me.” Neil added. “I’m so grateful, Edda. Honestly. And you’re doing a fab job.”

  “Ha! Right – table two…”

  I picked my way through the narrow spaces with the tray held high, coffee cups clinking against one another and the cake perilously close to the edge of the plate.

  It was hard work and my feet ached, my back was sore but it was a hundred times better than typing up the minutes of meetings at the Council. I reached the table and handed out the order, before heading back to Neil for the next one.

  What was holding me back from trying to make it as a café owner? Apart from money, that is …

  “Excuse me, could I have a cloth?” a woman caught my attention, and I looked down to see her tiny red-faced daughter, bawling, covered in chocolate milk.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll clean it up,” I managed a smile and headed to the back room for a mop and bucket.

  “Edda!” a hand grabbed me as I emerged into the café with the mop.

  I stopped in my tracks. “Beth!”

  “Edda, what are you doing here?” she looked incredulous.

  “Oh.” I stared at her, mop in one hand bucket in the other. “Cleaning.”

  “Yes I can see that … have you changed jobs? Have you finally gone and left the Council?”

  “No, no, I’m helping a friend out. Neil.” I gestured over to the coffee machine. “I’d mentioned my café-dream to him and, well, he needed emergency help today, so here I am.”

  Beth stood silently before me. “I didn’t know you were friends with the owner of our café.”

  I leant in and whispered to her, “Through the gardening.”

  She was thoughtful again. “I feel lik
e I don’t know you any more.” Her voice was wobbly and indistinct. “I had no idea you worked in our café. Or were friends with the owner.”

  I leant in to her again. “And I spent the night with Guy last night! Can you believe it? I—” I stopped when I saw the look on Beth’s face.

  “Are you punishing me?” she said and there were tears running down her face. “Is that what this is? Are you punishing me for having this baby and you think I’m splitting us up? Is it all about that divorce thing your stupid new friend was talking about?”

  “No! God no, Beth! Everything’s been manic the last few weeks and I’ve tried to talk to you. Didn’t you get my messages on the phone – I left at least three. But you’re always out house hunting or going to baby classes and you’re so busy…”

  “Yes but … oh I don’t know.” She wiped the tears away with the sleeve of her maternity dress.

  “Look, Beth, I was thinking, my café dream isn’t going to realise itself. Do you want to come property hunting with me soon? We can do a tour of South East London looking for places I could open a café of my own.”

  “Like Greenwich or Blackheath?” she said, brightening.

  “Not really. I was thinking more like Lee, or Catford, or somewhere up and coming. I’d never be able to afford anywhere in Greenwich or Blackheath.”

  Beth was grimacing. “Catford? Really? So you’re looking for the next Brockley I suppose.” She smiled, still teary.

  “I am. And you can help me find it. If you want to?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Hey – talking of up-and-coming Brockley have you seen the bookshop where Al’s kebabs used to be?”

  “I have! And did you see the place opposite where the grubby pub used to be? Guy’s friend is opening a bistro there in the next few days apparently.”

  Beth raised her eyebrows. “So are you and Guy an item?”

  “I think so,” I said. “But it’s not really clear cut, you know how it is.”

  “I think I can remember those days,” Beth looked slightly gloomy. “Eds, have you noticed that Brockley’s changing really rapidly?” She looked out of the window towards Fox Estates and the florist’s. “Your house is going to be worth a fortune if all this regeneration keeps on going. Did you get my text about the Mini Mart? It’s gone French – I half imagined Mr Iqbal to come out from behind the counter in a stripy shirt and droopy moustache and say bonjour to me. Do you know he tried to persuade me to buy chestnut mushrooms and a loaf of brioche?”